Freedom, Hanging By A Thread
by Signy1
Summary: Carter wasn't trying to stir up old ghosts. But when when he stumbled on the rip in Newkirk's mattress and the secret it held, that was precisely what he did. Freedom comes in a lot of different guises, not all of which are kind, and hope can be found in the unlikeliest of places. 2018 PBA winner.


It was RAF blue. Carter, frowning at the rip in Newkirk's mattress and the unfamiliar hint of color within, hooked a finger in a loop and pulled. It kept coming, bight after bight of it. "Say, Newkirk, what's this?"

"Oi! Give me that," Newkirk snapped, and snatched the coil away from Carter. "That's mine. Leave it bloody well alone!"

Carter blinked. "Sorry, Newkirk. What is that?"

Newkirk's hands tightened on it possessively, as though the other man might try to grab it back. "That's me own personal escape tunnel," he said shortly.

Makeshift rope, about six or seven feet of it, obviously braided from cut and twisted strips of fabric from an old pair of uniform trousers. One end was tied into a noose, ready and waiting, and Carter's eyes widened until they seemed about to pop out of his head. "Um… Newkirk, are you okay? 'Cause, you know, if you're, um, not feeling so good, maybe I could, um…"

"Leave off, mate," Newkirk said, the cord twined in his fingers like a rosary. "I'm fine. I've 'ad this for a long time. Since before any of you got 'ere. I just kept it because I reckoned that, so long as I 'ad it, I wouldn't need it."

Carter cocked his head, confused. "What?"

Newkirk sighed. "Look, Andrew-me-lad, it's no secret that I was in 'ere not only before I'd 'ad a chance to get me uniform rumpled, but almost before old Corporal Crackers 'ad a chance to rumple 'is, right?"

Carter nodded. Newkirk had made some sour jokes to the effect that his captors had told him not 'For you, the war is over,' but, rather, 'For you, the war never started.'

"Right. You think this rathole's bad now? You should've seen it back in '40. There weren't 'alf enough 'uts built, so we 'ad men sleepin' three to a bunk and the rest on the floor. No 'eat, no mail, not enough blankets. The only ones who didn't 'ave typhus were the ones with dysentery or the flu. They only fed us when they felt like it, and the guards' truncheons weren't for bloody show." Newkirk's eyes were focused on nothing, reliving those horrific early days, and Carter could almost see the grim picture his bunkmate was painting. And wished he couldn't.

Newkirk continued. He didn't seem to notice that he was running the braided cord through his fingers, over and over. "I was goin' ruddy mad for a while there. Could barely think straight; it felt like the barbed wire was wrapped clear around me throat and gettin' tighter every minute. The Kommandant—this was Muller, who was before Lange, who was before Klink—was settin' 'is watch by me escape attempts. I tried diggin' tunnels with a bloody spoon. Tried cuttin' the wires. Tried sneakin' out on the trucks. Nothin' worked."

"Wow. That's awful." Carter swallowed. By the time he'd come to Stalag 13, it was already a fully functioning stop on the escape pipeline, and he had come there as a volunteer to stay and assist the operation. He'd never spent a day in the camp without knowing that there was a way out if it all got to be too much. He had certainly never endured the sort of conditions Newkirk had.

"Wasn't a ruddy day at the beach," Newkirk agreed. "I was sick and starvin'—we all were—and bloody well near the end of me tether. Thought about just runnin' into the compound after lights out some night and yellin' bloody murder until the sentry spotted me. And that was one of the _saner_ ideas I 'ad rattlin' around in there. The Kommandant was a sadist, the guards were animals, and the senior POW—this was _well_ before the Colonel arrived—was a right bastard, and thick as a brick to boot; let's just say that the two of us weren't on the best of terms and leave it at that. So no 'elp was comin' from that end, either."

Carter reminded himself that he needed to breathe.

"Started thinkin' that if I couldn't get out one way, I'd get out the other. When your only choices are die long and 'ard or quick and easy… well. Coward's way out, they say, but I never claimed I was brave. So I ripped up a few articles of clothing from bunkmates who weren't going to be needin' a fresh uniform ever again, braided this, and 'id it in me kit."

"You just hid it? You didn't try to, um…"

"Nope. I didn't try to um. I 'ad just enough fight left in me to decide I didn't want to give the damned Krauts the satisfaction. If they wanted to finish me off, I 'ad no more objections, but they'd 'ave to work for it." He looked down at the cord in his hands. "Dyin' on one's own terms… sometimes it's the only weapon a man's got. Sometimes it's the only mercy left. And sometimes it's the only freedom 'e can 'ope for."

Carter looked at the floor, at the toes of his boots, anywhere but at his friend's face. "But you didn't," he said softly. "That was brave. You didn't do it."

"No. I didn't. I started pickin' fights instead. Or nickin' stuff from the guards' barracks. Mouthin' off at roll call. Whatever I could think of that would get me some cooler time, since if I were in the cooler, I _couldn't_ do anythin' crazy." He grinned. "Once I picked out the biggest, meanest-lookin' guard I could find, just walked up to 'im, tapped 'im on the shoulder, and handed 'im 'is watch and 'is pistol. 'E turned redder than LeBeau's scarf."

"Boy! You took his pistol? He could have killed you!"

"That was the general idea," Newkirk shrugged. "I won't say 'e was best pleased, but 'e controlled 'imself well enough. Left me breathin', anyway. Maybe 'e just didn't feel like doin' the paperwork. So it was back to the cooler, just in time to see them draggin' in this 'alf-sized firebrand, cursin' a blue streak and fightin' like a wildcat. The guard cracked 'im one. Didn't slow 'im down any. I didn't speak more than a few words of French, and 'e didn't speak much English, but we 'ad thirty days to figure out 'ow to talk to each other and nothin' else to do."

"Oh! That was how you met LeBeau?"

"That it was. 'Is cell was right near mine, so we didn't 'ave too much trouble shoutin' back and forth. And I realized less than two weeks in that 'e had a shorter temper and a louder mouth than even I did, and 'e was goin' to need someone around to 'aul 'is arse out of the fire. And believe you me, that was a full-time job."

Carter stifled a grin. This particular story was new to him, but he had heard some trenchant commentary from LeBeau on the subject of camp life pre-Hogan. Suffice it to say that, as regarded arses and the hauling from fires thereof, so far as the Frenchman was concerned, it was _Newkirk_ who had required the services of a caretaker. The truth, Carter assumed, was probably somewhere in between.

"That's all, really. I 'ad a mate to look out for, and that 'elped me keep me head. We made a few more escape attempts; went about as well as you'd expect, but never quite so bad that I needed me backup plan. Then the guv showed up, and 'e roped us both into 'is mad crew of merry saboteurs, and life got real busy. I gave me word not to escape, and I won't… but I kept this, anyhow. For good luck, really, as barmy as that sounds. Like I said; so long as I 'ave it, I know I won't need it… but the minute I were to toss it in the bin…" He trailed off for a moment, then gathered himself. He stroked the rope one more time, and stuffed it back into his mattress. "Silly superstition, right enough. But it's worked this long. Never 'urts to have an ace or two tucked up your sleeve for emergencies, you know."

 _I had a mate to look out for._ Carter was no psychiatrist, but he suspected that LeBeau, whether he knew it or not, had been the _real_ ace up Newkirk's sleeve. Whether Newkirk knew it or not, for that matter. He looked at the mattress, at the hint of color hidden in the straw, and wondered how many times his friend had been tempted to reach for the only freedom on offer. Wondered how much strength it took to wake up every morning and to decide, _no, not today_. More than he possessed himself, Carter suspected.

"Well. Anyhow," Newkirk said, suddenly uncomfortable. "That's the story. Keep your fingers out of me mattress from 'ere on in, all right? I've… right, I'm off." He flashed Carter a tight smile, clapped him vaguely on the shoulder, and left the barracks.

Carter looked around the empty room… not quite empty, after all. LeBeau was standing by his bunk, still as stone. They stared at each other for a moment. Newkirk, they both knew, would never have told that story if he'd known that he had an audience, and especially not _that_ audience.

"If I had to be taken prisoner at all," LeBeau said after a moment, "I think I am glad that it happened when it did, rather than a month or two later."

"I think I almost wish I'd been here sooner," Carter said quietly.

LeBeau shuddered, remembering. "No. You don't." He cleared his throat and strode to the door, and rested his hand, for a moment, on the uprights of Newkirk's bunk. "We will be free," he said. "All of us. We will survive this war together, and we will be free. This will happen. Because there is no other acceptable outcome." With that, he opened the door, then hesitated, let it close again. "I did not know he had that," he told Carter softly. "Nor how close he was to using it. And I do not think that he knows how close I came to… seeking my own freedom… when I was first brought here. We are lucky. We have both a cause worth dying for, and friends worth living for. Not all are so blessed."

He opened the door again, and before Carter could even begin to think of an answer to that, he was gone.


End file.
